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How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

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Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#41

Post by [deleted] »

ausjke wrote: post #20
princevegeta89 wrote: post #8

This is probably a reflection of the recent Cisco scumbaggery committed by two castist idiots that discriminated a fellow employee who was allegedly reporting to them. On the other hand, as an Indian myself, I've seen some really backward idiots spread all over America that try to reinforce the notion of caste and propagate that idea to others. Most of them are really uncivilized with narrow and closed minds. I know…

I know caste is for historical reasons, but is there some constitution amendment in India to do away with Caste for the whole country? considering India claims to be the largest democratic country on earth, if Caste is not strongly forbidden it can last forever and yes, it will be here in USA where more Indians are either working here, or acting as management roles these days. It's bad.

[deleted]

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#42

Post by one2know »

It's 100% race war out there. HR women and execs are fighting against white males. Indian and chinese managers are fighting against non-Indian, wrong caste, and non-Chinese.

Why is this flagged and downvoted? Censorship is not going to change what everyone can see as reality.

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#43

Post by bolasanibk »

egypturnash wrote: post #30

I find myself wondering why someone from one of the lowest castes does not simply claim to not be that when they are halfway across the world from the society that has a tradition of maintaining this? I can assume there’s a bunch of subtle class signaling that people do reflexively (speech patterns, dress preferences, whatever, I mean I live in a city with like five different distinct dialects that immediately tell a…

At least for Indians, names can be an effective signal for caste.

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#44

Post by toast0 »

raverbashing wrote: post #15
iaw wrote: post #9

Pertinent John Doe line 'When John Doe indicated to Cisco's human resources team that he wanted to file a complaint, he was allegedly told by the department that "caste discrimination was not unlawful".' Pertinent Cisco line 'We have robust processes to report and investigate concerns raised by employees which were followed in this case dating back to 2016, and have determined we were fully in compliance with all law…

> Cisco's HR lawyers decided Caste discrimination was legal Sounds like a fun point to make over a disbarment proceedings, because that's what I think they should be subject to.

From a human perspective, caste discrimination is really the same thing as race discrimination, discrimination based on your ancestry.

I'm pretty sure caste discrimination is unlawful in India (other than their reservation system of affirmative action). However, I don't believe caste is in legislation as a protected class in California or at the US federal level, nor do I believe there is judicial action on this. To me, that says, caste discrimination in the US is lawful and reprehensible. A lawyer should not be disbarred for making a determination that seems to be accurate.

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#45

Post by gamblor956 »

iaw wrote: post #9

Pertinent John Doe line 'When John Doe indicated to Cisco's human resources team that he wanted to file a complaint, he was allegedly told by the department that "caste discrimination was not unlawful".' Pertinent Cisco line 'We have robust processes to report and investigate concerns raised by employees which were followed in this case dating back to 2016, and have determined we were fully in compliance with all law…

Caste is not a protected class under US or CA labor laws, so they are legally correct.

In a nutshell: discrimination on the basis of one of the enumerated protected classes is unlawful. This list includes sex, gender, race, religion, and nationality, among the big ones. (Note: the list does not generally include ethnicity, which is roughly defined as "cultural identity.")

All other forms of discrimination, while potentially actionable for other reasons, are not prohibited. Thus, for example, in most states, you can be fired based on your political affiliation (though not in CA). As the US and CA do not have histories with caste systems, and potential cases represent such an insignificant fraction of possible cases, it was never made illegal here.

Arguably, caste discrimination is just a form of racial discrimination, but the plaintiff will have to connect the dots for the court to show the tie between caste and race.

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#46

Post by gamblor956 »

rbecker wrote: post #29
iaw wrote: post #9

Pertinent John Doe line 'When John Doe indicated to Cisco's human resources team that he wanted to file a complaint, he was allegedly told by the department that "caste discrimination was not unlawful".' Pertinent Cisco line 'We have robust processes to report and investigate concerns raised by employees which were followed in this case dating back to 2016, and have determined we were fully in compliance with all law…

> Cisco's HR lawyers decided Caste discrimination was legal A risky decision, since it's effectively ethnic discrimination: These groups remained genetically distinct, and the linguistic history of India suggests they spoke languages with dramatically different origins. Nevertheless, it appears there was a good deal of intermarriage [..] But then there is a sea change about 1,500 years ago. [..] People had to marry w…

Ethnicity is not a protected class in the US or in CA.

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#47

Post by l8again »

egypturnash wrote: post #30

I find myself wondering why someone from one of the lowest castes does not simply claim to not be that when they are halfway across the world from the society that has a tradition of maintaining this? I can assume there’s a bunch of subtle class signaling that people do reflexively (speech patterns, dress preferences, whatever, I mean I live in a city with like five different distinct dialects that immediately tell a…

Fair question. Your last name is a clear give away of your caste in most cases. There may be others, but I am not sure of what they may be.

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#48

Post by [deleted] »

toast0 wrote: post #44
raverbashing wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cisco's HR lawyers decided Caste discrimination was legal Sounds like a fun point to make over a disbarment proceedings, because that's what I think they should be subject to.

From a human perspective, caste discrimination is really the same thing as race discrimination, discrimination based on your ancestry. I'm pretty sure caste discrimination is unlawful in India (other than their reservation system of affirmative action). However, I don't believe caste is in legislation as a protected class in California or at the US federal level, nor do I believe there is judicial action on this. To…

[deleted]

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#49

Post by specialist »

nikeshm wrote: post #6

Man, this is really hard to stomach as a first generation Indian-American. I'm American, but my parents are distinctly not; the ideas of caste discrimination certainly come up often (we're Brahmin, FWIW, so you might imagine in what context these ideas come up). One hopeful thought I can add is that I've never once talked to a American-born Indian-American about caste, except to ridicule it as a horrific system of di…

American born Swedish Americans are mostly oblivious to Sweden's caste system. So I'd say your optimism is well placed.

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#50

Post by eweise »

wow_yes wrote: post #3
moonbug wrote: post #2

Racism? In Silicon Valley?

Racism is power + prejudice, and POCs like Indians have no power in the US. What's going on here is unfortunate but nowhere near a real issue, and certainly not racism.

Did you try looking in the dictionary for the word 'racism'? https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism
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